Monthly Archives: November 2014

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Korean scientists have localized Stirling engine technology, generating electricity along with heat from a home boiler.

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) announced on November 27 that it had developed a Stirling engine generator capable of producing not only hot water, but also up to 1kilowatt of electricity from a home boiler.

Stirling engines, unlike internal combustion engines that generate power through ignition and explosion, use heat to produce power, and are called clean engines as they emit less noise and toxic gases. The Stirling engine, with a closed-cylinder filled with helium or hydrogen, operates pistons by heating the gases.

The newly developed Stirling engine can produce 1KW of electricity through a two-way linear generator. Existing 1KW-class Stirling generators being produced by a couple of companies are mainly installed with one-way linear generator.

Durham Herald Sun Power Shift: a Durham company seeks to change an industry Durham Herald Sun.

“with Allam’s cycle, the exhaust exits the turbine and goes into a heat exchanger, which then recycles the hot stream of carbon dioxide throughout the system, skipping the condensing process and keeping the system at a higher pressure and temperature to retain efficiency.

In 2009, Rodney Allam sat down with a four-function calculator and began to model an emissions-free power generation cycle.

Over the course of several months, he came out with pages of calculations and a crucial number, called net efficiency.

This number indicated Allam’s cycle was more efficient than existing power generating cycles, while at the same time, it captured 100 percent of carbon emissions.

Now, $140 million in investments later by some of the world’s largest energy firms, a 25-person Durham business hopes to upend the entire energy industry.“It’s definitely a breakthrough,” said Joe Strakey, the now-retired chief technology officer for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Science 2.0 Is The Micropower Revolution Here? There is no shortage of shouting and dire warnings about the state of the climate and our need to phase out fossil fuels. But there is a more silent revolution happening too — in micropower. Small-scale electricity generation is slowly replacing big fossil-fuel driven power plants, which are currently the world’s single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. These micro-electricity producers are relatively small scale, inexpensive, and most importantly, produce little to no carbon emissions. Last year micropower contributed to around a quarter of the world’s energy, up from 10% in 2000.

The FourFold photovoltaic-thermal module captures four times the energy of a standard PV module, and it’s easy to manufacture. Photovoltaic thermal (PVT) panels – hybrid systems that generate electricity and extract heat – aren’t new, but a company called Focused Sun has developed a unique PVT panel that’s inexpensive to manufacture and easy to install. Recognizing that 95% of the world pays considerably more for energy than the US does, the company hopes to produce energy systems for developing nations.

One source of hydrogen for hydrogen cars will be wastewater, at least in California

The contents of your toilet could soon be powering your car and helping to cut down greenhouse gas emissions.

In this suburb of Los Angeles, FuelCell Energy Inc. is operating the world’s first “tri-generation” plant that converts sewage into electrical power for an industrial facility and renewable hydrogen for transportation fuel.

The system runs on anaerobically digested biogas from the Orange County Sanitation District’s municipal wastewater treatment plant. A 300-kilowatt-hour molten carbonate fuel cell uses the biogas to produce heat, electricity and hydrogen—making it a “tri-generation” system.

Hydrogen produced by the fuel cell is captured, compressed and sent to an on-site public hydrogen filling station for fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs) to use. The energy station produces approximately 100 kilograms of renewable hydrogen per day, which is enough to fuel up to 50 cars.

Significant savings in heating and cooling The self-contained, independent system consists of a multilayer storage tank, which is divided into several temperature zones and firmly piped to the ster

The self-contained, independent system consists of a multilayer storage tank, which is divided into several temperature zones and firmly piped to the sterilizer via a heat exchanger. The water temperature in the permanently filled storage tank increases from bottom to top. Separation planes prevent the temperature zones from mixing too quickly. The stored energy is used for both heating and cooling of the sterilizer.

The water temperature of the sterilization phase usually is 121 degrees Celsius. During cooling, the hot process water flows through the heat exchanger, where it is cooled by cold water from the storage tank. The water in the storage tank thereby absorbs energy from the sterilizer, and heats up again. By using existing cold water from the multilayer storage, manufacturers can reduce the amount of additional, costly cooling medium. An intelligent control system enables the energy to be stored in the storage tank’s different temperature zones. After the sterilizer has been reloaded, the energy in the multilayer storage can be re-used to heat the process water to 121 degrees Celsius.

A continuous repetition of these process steps significantly reduces the required amounts of heating and cooling media. As a result, up to 40 percent of the initial heating energy can be saved. Thanks to an additional heating exchanger integrated in the storage tank, the saving potential even amounts to 60 percent for cooling energy. “Apart from the saving potential in heating and cooling, a lower amount of overall media consumption also leads to smaller tank sizes,” says Alkan. “With these savings, companies contribute to environmental protection and can optimize their ‘green’ image.”